Obesity remains a serious health problem and it is no secret that many people want to lose weight. Behavioral economists typically argue that “nudges” help individuals with various decisionmaking flaws to live longer, healthier, and better lives. In an article in the new issue of Regulation, Michael L. Marlow discusses how nudging by government differs from nudging by markets, and explains why market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens to lose weight.

Armed with a computer model in 1935, one could probably have written the exact same story on California drought as appears today in the Washington Post some 80 years ago, prompted by the very similar outlier temperatures of 1934 and 2014.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

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Archives: 07/2013

Uruguay’s House of Deputies voted today to allow the production, commercialization, and distribution of cannabis, taking the first step to becoming the first country in the world to fully legalize marijuana. Even though Uruguay never criminalized personal consumption, this vote, passed 50-46, is a much bolder move.

The bill is a more elaborate piece of legislation than the draft introduced to the Uruguayan congress a year ago, which had only one article giving the state the power to regulate the cannabis market. Initially, the government contemplated creating a state-owned monopoly in the production and sale of the drug. The bill approved today provides for a private but strictly regulated market for cannabis. Uruguayans will be able to grow their own pot (up to six plants) or they can join membership clubs which can also grow their own marijuana (up to 99 plants). All crops require prior government authorization.

Also, Uruguayans will be able to buy marijuana from authorized drug stores (up to 40 grams per month). In order to do so, they will have to join a National Registry of Users. Even though the bill stipulates that the registry will be private and the information there is considered “sensitive,” there are good reasons to believe that not many people will rush to a government agency to register as a marijuana user. People under 18 years of age won’t be able to legally access marijuana and all forms of advertisement of the drug are prohibited.

The bill is now headed to the Senate where it is expected to pass. Once it becomes the law of the land, Uruguay will become the world’s standard-bearer of drug policy reform. Even though the country is small and it’s not beset by the plight of drug-related violence seen in Mexico or Central America, Uruguay’s marijuana legalization constitutes a momentous step in the road to dismantling the international prohibitionist regime that has been in place since the 1960s. Marijuana legalization bills have already been introduced in the legislatures of countries such as Chile and Mexico. And let’s not forget that cannabis was legalized last November (via referendum) in Colorado and Washington State.

The Obama administration faces a choice: it may either obstruct the momentum toward reform, or it may engage Latin American countries in an open debate about how to end a failed policy that has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the region. That would be change we can believe in.

…he didn’t say anything new or different. His audience was treated to the same tax-spend-and-regulate boilerplate that the President has been dispensing ever since he entered political life. …with Obamanomics, not only has America failed to enjoy the traditional period of four-to-five percent growth at the start of a recovery, the economy hasn’t even gotten close to the long-run average of 3 percent. That’s a damning indictment. But it gets worse. The data on employment is downright depressing. A look at the numbers reveals that the nation is suffering from the worst period of job creation since the Great Depression. Most startling, we still haven’t recovered the jobs we lost during the recession.

That’s some strong rhetoric, but there are plenty of numbers to back up my assertions.

Let’s take a look at the interactive website maintained by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank. This site allows users to compare all business cycles since World War II.

Let’s start by comparing the current business cycle to what happened under Reaganomics.

As you can see, we’ve had a very sluggish recovery compared to the boom we enjoyed in the 1980s.

Not all of this is Obama’s fault, by the way. Here’s some more of what I wrote for the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

…all of these problems started before President Obama ever got to the White House. President Bush also was guilty of too much spending and excessive regulation, and his policies helped push the economy into a ditch. Unfortunately, even though he promised “change,” President Obama has been adding to Bush’s mistakes — and also raising taxes.

Some people may be wondering whether it’s fair to compare Reaganomics to Obamanomics. Maybe I’m cherry-picking data to make Obama (and Bush) look bad.

Zimbabweans went to the polls today. Standing against each other in the contest for the presidency were, for the third time, President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Their respective political parties, the ZANU-PF and Movement for Democratic Change, battled for the control of the country’s Parliament.

None can be sure about the outcome, but smart money must be on the 89-year-old dictator, who seems determined to extend his 33-year hold on power. Mugabe has managed to hang on to the presidency in more difficult circumstances, murdering his way to electoral “victory” in the midst of hyperinflation and economic meltdown in 2008. He is likely to “win” again.

Those who are interested in the situation in Zimbabwe might like to read my take on the Zimbabwean economy in Foreign Policy and Washington Times. Also, Craig Richardson, associate professor of economics at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, has analyzed the country’s recent economic performance in a Cato Institute study titled “Zimbabwe: Why is One of the World’s Least-Free Economies Growing So Fast?” Last but not least, check out Cato’s Zimbabwe page that discusses, among other things, Zimbabwe’s experience with hyperinflation.

Global Science Report is a weekly feature from the Center for the Study of Science, where we highlight one or two important new items in the scientific literature or the popular media. For broader and more technical perspectives, consult our monthly “Current Wisdom.”

We and our apparently few friends tend to shriek with horror when governments try to centrally plan economies because, of course, planning places arbitrary prices on things and dictates how much of what will be made during the next five years. But we should be equally horrified when government tries to invent costs and then impose them upon us.

Such is the case with the “social cost of carbon” (SCC), a completely mis-named concept which purports to accurately estimate damages associated with global warming caused by pernicious fossil fuel-fired economic activity.

First of all, “carbon” has nothing to do with global warming. In its purest crystalline form, a gram will set you back about $50,000—a.k.a. a 5-carat diamond. Other allotropes include graphite and buckyballs–geodesic-dome like molecules composed of 60 carbon atoms. Combusted (oxidized) carbon-containing compounds are the materials that produce carbon dioxide (CO2). Uncombusted methane (CH4) along with carbon dioxide can slightly enhance the earth’s natural greenhouse effect.

Further, there are two sides to the industrial coin, not just negativity (i.e., social costs). It’s obvious that the combustion of carbon-containing compounds has driven a lot of civilization—a byproduct is the fact that you aren’t dead yet (life expectancy, pre-industrial revolution in Europe was around 35) and the fact that—in real dollars—you’re about ten times richer than your great-grandparents were.

So, what the government (e.g., the EPA) is really talking about is “The One-Tailed Effect of Oxidizing Carbon-Containing Compounds,” acronymed OTEOCCC, which just isn’t as catchy as SCC, which sounds like a Division I Football conference.

Limiting the EPA’s use of the SCC in considering regulations would be a wise move since the government’s SCC calculations are incomplete, subjective, and seriously lagging the science of climate change.

Recent protests by fast food workers have renewed interest in the minimum wage. Often, these protests focus on the inability of an individual worker to support a family on the minimum wage. Such a question spurred McDonald’s to release a mock budget for low wage workers. McDonald’s first mistake, however, was in accepting the premise of the question.

Whoever claimed the minimum wage was supposed to be enough to support a family? Certainly, when I started my first job flipping burgers at Burger King, I didn’t take that job expecting to support a family. It was an avenue to earn some spending money (I wasn’t born a Kennedy, so my family could not provide a generous allowance) and a way to learn some basic job skills. I haven’t been alone in viewing minimum wage restaurants jobs in that light. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012 (latest numbers) over half of minimum wage workers are under age 25. In fact, only 3 percent of workers over the age of 25 earn at or below the minimum wage. Two-thirds of minimum wage workers only work part-time, again illustrating the point that these jobs aren’t viewed as a career but rather the first rung on the job ladder.

The biggest driver of who works at minimum wage is education. Only 8 percent of minimum wage workers have a college degree. Around one third lacks a high school degree. Cost of living also drives the difference. Despite the higher state minimum wages found in the Northeast, about half of all minimum wage workers live in the South, a relatively more affordable place to live. Sadly, opponents of the current minimum wage level are getting their wish, but not in the way they wanted. Since 2010, the number of minimum wage workers has declined by over 800,000. Given the increase in minimum wage in 2009 and the relatively weak labor market, I think it’s a safe bet that most of these workers left the labor force rather than received a big raise.

Even if all minimum wage workers were trying to support a family on their own, I ultimately do not believe it’s the role of the government to inject itself into consensual private agreements. Nor do I believe it’s the role of the government to pick sides in private disputes. The government has no more moral authority to choose the “right” wage for someone than I do. Only free individuals can make those choices for themselves. Even if it wasn’t a policy choice about freedom of contract, do we really want, as a matter of policy, to encourage a large portion of individuals in their 30s and 40s to make a career of flipping burgers? I certainly didn’t start my job at Burger King with the intention of staying.

Encouraging as this must be for supporters of a larger federal role in early education, opinion polling is not a good way to design policy—any more than it is a good way to design bridges. There is an aspect of bridge construction in which public opinion does properly figure: assessing demand. But when it comes to actually designing the structure that will carry living, breathing people across a gorge, public opinion plays little role. The reason is obvious: most people lack the time, skills, and knowledge to design bridges. They know what they ultimately want out of civil engineering projects, but they don’t know how best to achieve their goals.

Because of that fact, this is precisely not the sort of policy that should be expensively promoted at the federal level. If states wish to gamble that they can succeed where others have failed, then their residents should be the ones who put their money on the line. That approach has the merit that state politicians can be more easily held accountable than federal ones—voters have fewer issues on which to decide whom to support or oppose at the state level.

Well-meaning as the First Five Years Fund and its philanthropic backers no doubt are, their effort to design policy based on public opinion polling is badly misguided. It is little better than a schoolyard taunt that “everyone else wants to do it.” Serious people, people who actually want to achieve their stated goals and not simply win a political contest, can do better.